Balrog's 'What went wrong' and 'Critique' video thread

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
361

Thank you for your time to critique my style.
And thanks for the props HvE.

Jumping lp i use as a tool to let them stay in the corner or at close proximity of the corner, it comes out fast does crap damage. But that wasnt my main goal here J.lp/NJ.lp is very effective vs most of the cast. I use jumping back HP if opp follow persuit.

It seems i jump alot yes your right need to tone that a bit. Its my way of landing a combo, landing a combo from standing position is a bit harder to do because of the charge time involved.

Vs some other matchups i did use c.hp as an AA but with a huge price especialy vs dee J’s jumping knee vortex. I’m kind of scared to use c.hp at the last moment. But in this case i had plenty of time to use c.hp i suppose def something to work on.

Well i used it 2 or 3 times i think and none or just 1 baited him. Yes i do play at times risky but if succesfull it pays good! Sometimes if your in a pinch and start using risky tactics like overhead your prone to hard punishment. And your right especialy if opp has ex meter and an ultra then i’m prone to major damage punish. Def a thing to consider especialy vs more skilled people.

I use back dash with focus atleast i can absorb 1 hit while back dashing (same way you absorb fireballs to fill up your revenge meter). Its handy vs regular specials or regular normals when they do c.mk i backdash focus and see them trying to continue their combo while i’m not in range and punish. But vs ex specials backdash focus is risky, yeah you absorb 1 hit of ex DP but not the rest and thanks to focus absorb it takes even more damage.

Do you mean backdash without focus is this a better option?
Thanks again m8

362

Don’t try to justify it. Jumping Fierce also comes out fast but does good damage and it is also effective ‘in close proximity to the corner’ - Oh I’m sure there may be a scenario once in a blue moon where you regret not using a normal with faster frames but 99% of the time, if you can punish a jump, you want to do exactly that, punish it and using jumping jab… Well, thats just not going to cut it.

No, it’s not. Landing combo’s from Jumping SHOULD be harder because good opponents will stop you from jumping in any chance they can, if they can. Learn the ground game, focus forward dashes, TAP, just plain walking forward into a BnB (Balrogs charge-timing is lenient so no excuses there), footsies into knockdown to get in on wakeup etc etc

Jumpins are one of the least viable of the lot unless you’re fighting a) An opponent with poor AA reaction and/or b) A character with poor AA moves, fullstop - Lastly, it should be abused on characters with absolutely terrible wakeup options.

Unfortunately, no, it’s not - And this is coming from someone who absolutely adores overhead and uses it multiple times per match - A really on point player will neutral jump/throw/block your Overhead and have a field day - You don’t see many great players eating Overheads and thats because a) They have the reaction to cope against it and b) Not many Boxers will risk it because of (A) for good reason. You really can’t be throwing out too many opportunities for opponents to get a moderately easy punish because Balrog himself can struggle to get damage off against people with above reactions and defense to begin with.

Regarding the Dashes - He meant to get out of that mixup range anyway you can. You don’t need to explain how Focus Absorbs work, I think most people here are aware it soaks a hit :stuck_out_tongue:

Just take note of the spacing to punish his forward kicks and pokes rather than being in a range where he can throw them out and pepper them with jabs/tick-throws/kara-throws etc, focus dashing is great but Shoto’s can often punish them when used too close to them by normals or fireballs so it’s not always a good option. Naked backdashing or blocking until you are free and just moving away should be considered.

I don’t play many Ken’s and those I do play are often horribad jumpback spammers or mashers (Free) but a sparring partner of mine during an online friendly session suprisingly changed to Ken for a few games - Seems he wants to get a break from Bison and the first few games he scared me because I wasn’t used to how he was playing Ken. Granted, he wasn’t fab with him as he’s learning but he knows how I play so funnily enough I suffered at some of the above problems, myself.

I didn’t ask for critique on it because I’m waiting for him to really get into it and mostly because I can see, for myself, a lot of the garbage I’m doing and bad-habits. Ironically my problems are forward dashing at stupid times, letting them get free from the corner and all manner of things - I’m too used to charging in against people and vs his Bison you need to dictate the pace of the match or he walks all over me - Doesn’t work the same vs Ken. Also, the reason I was using Dash Low Blows so much is because he KNOWS I love to Overhead.

SF4 is about adapting to a Player as much as a Character so we were trying to throw eachother off with different styles and characters. Our Bison/Balrog games are generally split right down the middle.

[media=youtube]OEbCq5e7ioU"]YouTube - ? SF4 PC ? - RopeDrink [BAL] v [KEN[/media]
(NOTE: I absolutely retardedly abused jumpins in Match 2 because he admitted a lot of his reversals where stuffed or plain didn’t come out due to lag in previous games so he wasn’t AA’ing at ALL - No, I certainly DONT jump that much normally).

As you can see, regarding Overhead, it’s not hard to punish, especially in the corner (Used it twice, neutral jumped the first, threw me out of the second) and no doubt there’s plenty of other mistakes in there for you to check out on my part :wink: Especially relying on EX Specials when I was desperate or ‘pre-emptively’ hoping for fireballs - He doesn’t actually throw that many so it’s off-putting.

Bison Match for Comparison:
[media=youtube]NlldXVgFyVY[/media]

363

Bypassing above response to another poster, I didn’t actually realise just how annoying it is vs Fei Long. A certain player crops up now and then who generally suprises me and actually has me running scared 75% of the match… I don’t think it’s his choice of character but more his intention of using footsies and relatively smart focus attacks, something which I’m not accustomed to most of the time.

Ironically I only noticed this after recording a match PURELY to show off a new music mod I’m making but sadly it’s a fight I won (And not in a good fashion, either) and didn’t think to keep the earlier matches where he tore me a new ass - So no, this really won’t do the bloke justice.

[media=youtube]POBmLnMnPXY[/media]

I’ll throw it up anyway but it generally just shows me struggling with BnB’s due to odd-connectivity and frustration and laming the guy out.

NOTE:
The two matchup threads do NOT have Fei Long matchup tips/strats so I’m half blind with this one.

*Chicken Wing at close range can crossup crouching Balrog - This hurt me quite a lot because he loves ducking in for lowblows or knockdowns, usually into Rekka combos.

*Jumpins, even on wakeup, often result in Flaming Kick. 75% of my safejump attempts where anticipated and punished accordingly. This makes me fearful of jumping at all.

*Advancing often results in blocking a (safe) Chicken Wing into Mixups or safe distanced Rekka (x1 or x2). Failing that, just plain footsies which I generally seem to lose 75% of the time.

*Loves focussing sweeps into crumples and neutral jumping at medium distance to try and punish any Dashes [Sadly I keep eating this because I have on occasions punished this with an EX RU (Air Juggle) into Ultra] making me resort to chip games via glove-tip dash straights (which generally don’t win many damage wars and also sometimes lose to Rekka’s, Normals or worse.

*The bloke is fab at Chicken Wing (Hit) followed by a full on combo into 3xRekka or SUPER… It hurts a damn lot (About 7-9 hit combos).

Things I try to do.

Keep at Medium distance and zone him out with Normals / LDS.
Stuff Chicken Wings with FSJabs (My reactions are too poor for this half the time, though).
Keep Torpedo handy - This specific person really does like to pepper pressure with focus attacks - Failing that an EX OH>Ultra or TAP/CH TAP into Combo.

Other than that I could do with a ‘general’ Fei Long v Balrog matchup response, not a critique of my own play. As said, the above movie is mostly about the music mod than it is the fight and it’s probably the one showing him at his least impressive moment so it’s not worth critiquing.

Anyone able to lend some strats?

364

Here’s a playlist of me playing against a friend online who mains Gen.

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Critique pls.

365

[quote=“RopeDrink, post:362, topic:62255”]

Don’t try to justify it. Jumping Fierce also comes out fast but does good damage and it is also effective ‘in close proximity to the corner’ - Oh I’m sure there may be a scenario once in a blue moon where you regret not using a normal with faster frames but 99% of the time, if you can punish a jump, you want to do exactly that, punish it and using jumping jab… Well, thats just not going to cut it.

I have to disagree with that. Its justified because i mentioned Neutral jumping Lp wich for me comes out faster then Neutral Jumping Hp. And yes i tried to use Neutral Jumping Hp in the beginning. But for some reason some of the air to air battles i lost this concernerning Neutral jumps. And not forward jump HP or back jump HP wich is far more effective then lp. And for me making a choice wether i should use Neutral jumping hp for more damage or use jumping neutral lp for the enemy to stay in the corner. Il use the second option, if it werent that effective i wouldnt use it that often.

For me playing boxer isnt all about damage output but also footsies, baiting and countering just like jumping neutral lp. I love it and do get hate mail or rage quiters sadly, just because i use it. For me thats a clear indication its very effective and gets people agitated wich in turn gets them off balance, for other tactics. Il use jumping neutral lp only when they jump up and i as a result immediatly jump with them with neutral jumping lp on reaction. Its not something i planned beforehand.

Or i need to delve into the jumping neutral hp and see whats the best way to land one consistently.

366

It’s a bad habit. Bad habits are incredibly hard to fix, especially if you have been using it for so long. Being in denial about it doesn’t help either. Everybody has had bad habits at one time or another in this game. Having people rage messaging you about it isn’t an indication of anything. Fix it. Either cr.Fierce, headbutt, jump fierce or even neutral jump roundhouse (The gut punch).

It’s ok to be wrong. Especially in this thread, because we are all here to help. So let me tell you that there are no situations in which a jumping jab is even remotely close to being the best anti-air option.

367

Bad habit…? It’s ok to be wrong…? being in denial? thats already three accusations lol. You would have been right if the technique was crap, i’m not here to be mocked at…All of your OTHER critique i could see my errors honestly, with that said…Since when am i wrong? I clearly stated that neutral j.lp is mainly used to keep the pressure and let them stay in the corner. You forget that people have their own unique style. About 90% of the time neutral j.lp works just fine to let them stay in the corner i? not wrong with that.

Because in the heat of battle where you need to make instant decisions il use N-j.lp it comes out fast and reliable. It wasnt ment to be used as an AA. Let me put it this way c.hp, and especialy headbutt are no viable options to let the opp stay in the corner for me (especialy when i have no charge (BnB, option select) and c.hp comes out to slow to bait their jump escape) and when they try to jump away it isnt an jumping attack but an jumping escape. N-j.lp to force them to stay in the corner and keep the pressure,

In this aspect i dont care about the damage output that was never the intention in the first place. “Having people rage messaging” yes it does its a feedback altough a negative one but still feedback nonetheless. And neither is it a bad habbit i love it letting people stay in the corner when they try to escape via an jump away wich they fail at doing so. When i’m pressuring the opp in the corner i sometimes have no charge. And when they try to jump i immediatly jump with them on reaction with lp.

Hope this clears things up…

But i can see where you made your decision, just from 1 video.

Its the only critique i dont agree with all of the rest is pretty much accurate.

368

No offense, again, but you constantly try to justify it. Ask yourself - Do you see any respectable ‘competative’ Balrogs using J.LP? You don’t… You are the only one, and you seem to think you’ve struck gold with it… J.LP has shorter range, less damage and probably has less active frames… I’m sorry but the problem isn’t that J.LP is worse than J.FP/NJ.FP/S.Srong or D.FP (Heck, I’d prefer L.HB over J.LP), it’s that you just simply can’t even use any of them properly.

You are NOT being mocked here - This is a critique thread, people are criticizing what you do, it’s what you came here for… J.LP is just not good at all… All the reasons you give in it’s defense are the EXACT SAME REASONS we use J.FP - It’s range, speed, frames and, above J.LP, damage (& Stun). You can’t justifty J.LP as the better AA over all the other tools Balrog has.

The only good thing that comes from J.LP is that it LOOKS like J.FP and incurs quicker block-stun - Some people like to use it to Jumpin on an opponent and, thinking it a J.FP, they may block longer than they would jabs, so they get Thrown because they don’t tech straight away… That is the ONLY thing I’ve seen J.LP used for AT ALL since I started playing this at the start of '09.

369

All the above you stated regarding range, damage i already know. Yes i’m one of the very few boxers who uses n-j.lp as a way to KEEP them in the corner.

This i can tell because practically all boxers who i faced dont use it. The only exception are 2 other boxer players who adapted this technique after watching how effective it was in certain situations, and one other great boxer (eu) who already implemented it in his tactic. ---- stay in the corner because c.hp, HB, are no viable options anymore. Its good because of how insane quick it is if opp tries to jump away from corner. Sometimes you cant tell if they are attempting a jump away. Hence its a n-j.lp on reaction. There is a difference in keeping your opp in the corner with charge and without charge. In the scenario when you havent got an charge ready in very close proximity of the opp in the corner (throw range) its for me a viable option.

And please stop reffering my Neutral jumping LP as an AA its getting annoying never claimed it was an AA! AA means for me and a lot of people defending your self against an jumping ATTACK only when the spacing alows it, otherwise you can use s.mp. Please read… Granted the video didnt showed in essence what i mean so dont judge that particular aspect.

It all comes down to preference. Il continue using n-j.lp as mentioned in the above post(s).
I have to admit the video didnt show how well it does, perhaps il post one, one that does show people what i truly mean.
Just because you hardly ever saw it doesnt mean its bad. Because well most balrogs are either happy turtlers all the way and deserve to be raped hard. Or play smart offensive wich is the way to play boxer, and only use turtle style as a last resort. I try to play aggressive always looking for a gap in the opp defence, i’m not suited for lame style hence the n-j.lp fits my needs its fast and il do it on reaction.

“Do you see any respectable ‘competative’ Balrogs” nice comment ^_- i can see where you’re heading…to me it sounds like a back stab as if i’m no repectable, competative boxer nice example of neural linguistic programming (NLP) tell me if i’m wrong…I faced a lot of very high ranking opp’s ranging from 4500pp to 5700pp and real tournament players, most of them acknowledge me as a solid, rush down boxer, not because they win a lot its because i give them a really hard time or just plain smoke them. The only exeption it seems are solid Abel and solid fei-long wich i dont face that often. The guy in the video is nice but in a nother session he was screwed winning 0 times.

peace.

370

It really doesn’t come down to preference, that’s like saying “I prefer doing jumpins with j. lk”. You’re choosing an option that is clearly worse in every way and you’re being stubborn about it and are trying to defend the wrong choice.

There’s no reason to post in here if you don’t want feedback and criticism.

371

You misunderstood all of the other critique about me where truthfull, and already taken that into concideration of how to perform better and not making those mistakes again. (I came here for feedback truth. But does it mean that n-j.lp is wrong no it doesnt, i know in my experience its effective so no need to drop that) Except… neutral j.lp wich for me works great, i explained in depth in my previous posts. But you know it doesnt matter words do me no good i can explain, explain, but when people do not know or seen what i ment by neutral j.lp, because the previous poster never has seen a boxer doing it. To me it means he doesnt understand especialy with a video that doesnt show the real effectiveness of what i’m trying to explain…infain. Then there is no point in further discussion regarding n-j.lp.

Look at 1:55 an 2:40 of the video [media=youtube]fvJeVs1IB68[/media] i used n-j.lp on reaction granted its better suited in the corner it also baits air normals of opp’s in very close proximity of the corner, this will give you an idea of what i mean. If it wasnt that effective i wouldnt use it at all its my style.

372

Backstab? Eh, no. The point is that for all the competative / tournament level play (Top end) you will not see a Boxer using aerial Light Punches to keep people in the corner, there are far more common & reliable/stronger methods of doing this with or without charge. The simple point was that you won’t see it because people use all the other tools of which are more effective, I don’t know or care how good you are and I see no reason to insult people who ask for criticism so no, it wasn’t some kind of dig at you but a general comment regarding Boxers playstyle and how it’s used by those who main him for competative play.

And yes, I will refer to it as an AA. Jumping up in the air with intent to knock someone out of the air “To keep them in the corner” or otherwise (which can be done with most of Balrogs Normals) is considered an AA as you are stopping the person from a successful jump. Hence “Anti-Air”.

And you are also missing the point. Nobody is debating that J.LP’s do the job - People are quite simply saying it can be done better with other moves. If all of Balrogs other options are not ‘open’ to you and you adopt J.LP, then maybe you’re suffering from spacing issues. There is absolutely nothing wrong with D.FP / S.MP / NJ.FP / J.FP or Headbutts (Even EX Straights) as AA or “Keep in the corner” moves - You’ll find that most people opt for spacing to keep people in the corner, ensuring that the opponent has little ‘safe’ escape options for when they try to get out.

Nobody is having a go at you - Heck someone already said you seem like a solid Boxer - We’re simply critiquing one of the things that stick out the most.

You clearly don’t agree with the critique and thats your call but don’t be offended if people don’t agree with your choice.

373

In both of those examples you would have had less risk (j lp has extremely few active frames and a small hitbox), higher damage, and higher stun by using jump back hp. Yes, j lp works for you, but it is not the optimal choice, that’s the only point here.

374

I’ve got a few game from a couple of months ago where I get completely trashed at a 2v2 tournament, but they’re the only videos I’ve got and I think that I could use some help. Just as a note before you watch the videos though I’ve already worked a lot on my wakeup game and have started to just block/tech so much more, and I was quite nervous with it being the first time I had been so far in a tourney (on the big screen). I did also forget all about Chun’s super and on re-watching I hate myself for the entire end of the second round against the chun.
Shoryuken - C-3 Jack Cole (Box) vs Sky (Ch) - UC1 2v2
Shoryuken - C-5 Jack Cole (Box) vs Xiaopang (Ca) - UC1 2v2

P.s. Be kind =(

375

Can’t really say too much that you don’t already know. You got nervous and missed a few punishes.

Against the Cammy:

1m20s: missed the punish. I’m sure you didn’t mean to do that headbutt
1m27s: bad decision. Consider practicing cancelling cr.rh if you see them focus. It’s something that JS Master frequently does and I have a lot of trouble doing it, because it takes really fast reactions. But yea, it looked like a nervous mistake.
1m39s: terrible headbutt. I’m not sure how you timed that one, because if I were to throw one out there as a gamble, I would do it after I see them focus cancel dash forward, but it looks like you got a bit impatient and did it before you saw them dash back.

A few bad decisions 1 after the other cost you the 2nd round. The 3rd round, you started playing real safe, resorting to just blocking instead of anti-airing, using only sweep to punish moves, punishing too late, etc.

You can’t let cammy dive kick you like that. You can’t use cr.fierce most of the time, but you can headbutt or jump back fierce. since you let cammy dive kick all day, she had no trouble getting in on you.

Against chun. You should know that you cant react to a fireball with a dash ultra. There just isn’t enough time. You anticipate a fireball and dash and once you see a fireball while you’re dashing, you input the ultra.

Other than that, Chuns are bitches. for real. They limit your options and Chun is like the only character that can actually outfootsie balrog. At high level, there is very little balrog can do, except hope for the chun to make mistakes. That is not a good gameplan, lol. Maybe others can give better ideas about this matchup, but yea, for sure even the best balrogs in the world have a really hard time against good chun lis.

Just play patient, block fireballs and slowly push chun into the corner (which is what you did in round 2). Personally, I would have put myself a little closer to her to better punish her whiffed normals. Also, yea, like you said, that round should have ended a lot earlier as she was sitting on a super meter. One game changer was at 2m13s where you decided to focus, rather than hold down back. If you had a charge there, you would have been able to hit a headbutt into the ultra that would have probably changed the outcome of that round.

I think you should befriend that chun player and play him a lot.

376

Thanks for the advice, I have no idea what to do in the Cammy match so I was trying to just grind it out in round 3 but I think I was a little mindfucked after the 2nd round and got too scared to really press buttons and (still) cant handle the dive kick pressure. I think that the string of poor decisions that cost me round 2 was due to both lack of Cammy experience and me just wanting him anywhere but next to me.

Like F-Word said I’m usually comfortable with the Chun match, I played a lot against Kayne when she was in London and online, so I got familiar with the match but I played so bad there. When I did that focus that you pointed out a jump was the last thing I was expecting, I was looking for a sweep or st.fierce to absorb.

I will work on focus cancelling that sweep if I see it absorbed as I’ve noticed I get hit by that really often but couldn’t think of a way to stop that other than just don’t sweep in the first place.

377

Yea, it wasn’t really a mistake, but more like a wrong guess.

In any case, I suspect you learnt more from rewatching your videos than from any kind of feedback we can give you.

378

Alright after reading your last view comments regarding n-j.lp, il delve into the jumping neutral hp or perhaps jumping neutral hk. Il give it a honest try for a couple of days see if it now works properly. I tried in the beginning but had no real succes. Perhaps the adaptation with the n-j.lp and jump on reaction, will help me to utilize the n-j.hp better.

Thanks for all the feedback and critique.

379

Jump back HP will net similar results and give you a slightly longer window in which to react, dash forward after landing and you’ll regain your original positioning (or close to it) :slight_smile:

380

What Gillette said, alongside the fact it does far more damage, stun, more active hitframes & bigger hitbox (More chance of it connecting to the opponent) - At the end of the day if I noticed my jumpins or jumpouts where being stopped by LightPunches that really wouldn’t scare me in the slightest even if any attack puts me back in the corner.

You seem to have the jump-attack to AA pretty well so if you can swap the LP for the more common FP / NJFP or any other AA options I think you’ll have much greater success at both keeping people in the corner AND dishing out the damage. Good luck with it either way, just takes practice and you’ll realise there are many options for Balrog in that scenario.

I’m not one for spacing or even footsies but even I can maintain a corner trap at times if I really try.

Downfierce, Light Headbutt (Clean or Trade, into Ultra if I want), NJ.FP, J.FP, S.Strong, EX DS (Characters like Bison with lopsided jumps or fast jumps where I want to stuff a jump/jumpattack and push them back) heck this week I connected multiple TAP // Rush-Uppers // EX Rush Uppers into Ultra purely because I noticed horrible jumps by opponents (Mostly lolsome Back-Jump Fireball Akumas) but the option is there.

Naturally they are all spacing / charge dependant / situational but thats the thing, you just need to learn what is best to use when/where and you’ll find a far more solid ‘keep in corner’ game even if you do still decide to keep J.LP in your arsenal out of habit or preference.

Take the time to at least try them all out and when you see them at their strength you may realise why people made a point of mentioning the J.LP and that nobody tried to insult you over it, just point out that you could try something a little better.

However, as you call yourself an aggressive Balrog, I would suggest that if you do use J.LP (And seeing as you jump quite often) that maybe you should use it for the occasional jumpin to throw off opponents when they think they’ve blocked a J.FP but actually blocked a J.LP, they may hold off on trying to tech until they ‘think’ the blockstun ends but don’t notice you have already thrown them because they only blocked a disguised J.LP which has far less hit-stun/block-stun.

I’ve seen a good few Boxers use that in the past but not as an all-round AA, hence my previous comments, they all use the more common tools but J.LP does have uses you can adopt into your game.

I must try and find the Gamechariot video of the bloke who was using it - Think it was ‘Janet’.